Beauty that you don’t see

When people talk about beauty today there are certain names that come to mind. The Kardashians, Miss World or the girl without spots. The thing is that our perspective of beauty is limited and narrow. We need to know that everything and everyone around us is beautiful. Beauty is not found in uniformity but in uniqueness. Tattoos are beautiful, there is nothing like too much melanin and yes there is nothing that limits beauty.

Self-Liberation People who decide to get tattoos know the first thing about feeling self-liberated. A new piece means a new journey and a new addition to something that will be apart of you forever. People with tattoos decide to forget the stigma of what people think when they see a visible tattoo and do it anyway. When I get new ink added on me, I feel like I have a new piece to my crazy life story, and I did it for myself. Having a keen sense of self is something our generation lacks, and people with tattoos get them to make themselves happy. Commitment Is Not An Issue When you get a tattoo, you are agreeing that for the rest of your life, you will have it inked on your body. I take commitment seriously, and my tattoos go to show that I’m not scared of committing to anything. When I get it fixed in my head that I want something, I go after it and don’t stop going until I get it. Having tattoos is a commitment you make to yourself in knowing you will never be able to part from them. They Usually Have Badass Stories Each one of my tattoos has a significant story behind it, and I gladly tell the stories when asked. My life is far from ordinary, and my tattoos definitely prove that. Life is about living without doubts and doing exactly what you want. My story is different from others, but I live knowing at least I have one to tell. People with tattoos have a sense of self and obviously aren’t scared to share that through their art. A story is meant to be told; why not tell it how you want?

The biggest problem with dark skinned women is wanting to be light skinned. It seems that being dark skinned is not depicted as being cool in media. Almost all adverts have a light skinned woman. There are body whitening creams for women who feel they are not white enough. What happens when you are so dark to the point you are the epitome of being black?

Meet Khoudia Diop- the world’s most beautiful black skinned girl. She is a Senegalese model who is shattering stereotypes about skin colour She is redefining the meaning of body positivity. The stunning beauty became an internet star overnight after her photo was published for the Coloured campaign- a platform that celebrates various skin types.

Diop calls herself the ‘Melanin Goddess’ because of her skin colour is as ‘dark as night’. Melanin is a pigment present in our skin that decides our skin and hair colour. Apart from this, melanin protects our skin from the harmful effects of UV rays. More melanin=darker skin. Khoudia is said to be the darkest model in Africa.

Growing up, the black beauty was often bullied for her colour. She has been called ‘charcoal black’, nicknamed as ‘darky’ to being teased as the ‘daughter of the night’. She said that bullies would come up with ways to make her feel bad about her colour, but she showed them that her complexion will never be an issue. Now that is the quality of a fierce woman. And no wonder, her beautiful skin tone is now taking her to places.

Albinism is referred to as the condition whereby a person has little or no melanin. These are people who are beautiful in their own way and when the world is focused on plastic breasts and behinds there are those who focus on a rare gem.

Beauty beyond skin colour is a fashion event aimed at bringing together people living with albinism, encouraging positive outlook of people living with albinism, breaking the standards of beauty in the Kenyan fashion industry and embracing how God chose to create them.
For long people with Albinism (PWA) have been marginalized, looked down upon as not ‘beautiful’ and their lives have been put in danger with traditional beliefs that their body parts make good potions. PWA are looked down upon as persons who can not accomplish simple tasks hence loosing lots of job opportunities yet they are capable of doing what the rest of the general population can. PWA have great minds and talents.
Most of the PWA live in absolute poverty because of being unemployed and even when they try self employment only a few people are willing to support them. We want to raise awareness that albinism is not a disease and that it’s not transmitted by coming into contact with PWA .We want to create platform where people with albinism can express themselves and the general population can be able to embrace them. Most PWA are killed after birth or abandoned at children’s home because their parents fear victimization from the community. A bigger percentage is also raised by single mothers because their fathers abandoned them immediately after birth. We ‘beauty beyond skin colour’ want to show the African community that PWA can be beautiful just as the rest of the population and it is just another kind of normal.